From our earliest days as a species we have used violence against innocent (or random) victims to establish difference. Social crises produce undifferentiation, we are all alike and need to be differentiated. The victim is the first ‘difference.’ It is from the victim that we establish difference, the difference between up and down, in and out, us and them. The victim is the place we learn how to ‘other’ the other.   In the Eucharist we come as a killing... Read more

For almost all of the twentieth century Fundamentalist Christianity claimed hegemony over ‘orthodoxy.’ In the twenty-first century they have lost their self-proclaimed right to determine what constitutes heresy and boy are they pissed! The past fifteen years have brought about a sea change in our understanding of the gospel and more and more scholars, pastors and just regular folk are recognizing that the Janus-Faced god of Calvinism is tumbling down. All of the armchair theologians who troll Facebook and Patheos... Read more

Eucharist, Holy Communion, and Lord’s Supper. The most important ritual of the church goes by many names. In some cases celebration of this ritual is rather elaborate as in the Orthodox and Roman Catholic traditions, in other cases, like the Mennonite or Baptist churches, the liturgy is minimalistic. What is happening here in this meal? For the past 500 years Protestants of various stripes and Catholics have argued about the presence of Christ in the bread. Is Jesus really present?... Read more

For the next five posts I am going to write about the Eucharist. Three of these posts were composed and published in May 2013 on my Facebook page, the final two posts come from this year. The Fourth was written for Holy Thursday. These posts reflect my engagement with the work of Rene Girard as they apply to this most important (sacramental) meal we Christians engage in (daily, weekly, monthly or occasionally). I hope you find them beneficial. The Eucharist... Read more

From a sermon on I John 4:1-6 I preached a few years ago (with a few editorial emendations): Many Christians believe that God is love and rightly so. But they have been told that the non-violence of Jesus is peripheral to his person and his work.  Why? Because it has tacitly been accepted that Jesus believed that God is retributive.  Many believe that God sacrificed Jesus to satisfy holy honor.  God’s love is tempered with justice and honor.  For every divine... Read more

For ten years I have been teaching a Saturday seminar titled “How Jesus Read His Bible” (in fact I will be teaching it this coming Saturday at St Andrew’s Church in Kildwick). In that seminar I show how the themes of sacrifice, holiness codes, zeal, atonement and an apocalyptic dualism form a matrix of understanding within Second Temple Judaism and it was this matrix critiqued by Jesus who has a very specific hermeneutic. I end the seminar exegeting Galatians 3... Read more

Yesterday I led a seminar in Manchester (England) on the Resurrection of Jesus. Of course in talking about the resurrection you have to talk about the crucifixion. I began with an exposition of Acts 2 and Peter’s sermon and the expectation of second Temple Jewish eschatologies and the wrathful Day of the Lord and how when Peter says that the people had killed the one whom God had made both Lord and Messiah, the people were terrified. Of course they... Read more

I am not avoiding your comments, I still don’t have access to them. I am traveling in the UK at the moment and while I enjoy posting I am unable to figure out just how to get Disqus to co-operate. Even my wife back in PA can read your comments but they just won’t show here for me. Mea culpa. Well, I hope you are enjoying what I am posting. I, on the other hand, am enjoying my daily dose... Read more

A teen in Pennsylvania may receive a two year prison sentence for mounting a statue to receive a ‘blow job’ by Jesus. There is no disputing the lack of wisdom displayed in this act. However, one does wonder WWJD in this case? When we recall the incredibly violent abuse and torture Jesus went through after his arrest and before his crucifixion, we tend to shy away from images that would offend. I recall the backlash against Mel Gibson’s The Passion of... Read more

John 17:20-26 I begin today with (an apocryphal) story I have heard with apologies to all of our friends in the Churches of Christ. Sometime at the beginning of the twentieth century there was a Church of Christ in Lubbock, Texas. When people came to church, dressed in their Sunday best, the men would have to keep their hats with them in the pews, so someone suggested that they build a hat-rack and place it in the narthex where hats could be... Read more